Treaty of Versailles - Modern Reappraisal

[KukriKhan]

Well, this discussion is interesting, but it kind of runs into circles after 10 pages. Anyone feels like making an outlandish claim, so we can all get worked up again? :D

Here's another: All this re-writing of history, so that Versailles inevitably CAUSED National Socialism and wwII, is a clever conspiracy by the Bush administration to persuade today's Germany that it is now OK (after decades) for them to again nurture their inner warrior and to send German soldiers out of their country TO SUPPORT US MILITARY ADVENTURES, mirroring similar subterranean movements in Japan.

[Sarmatian]

Here's another: All this re-writing of history, so that Versailles inevitably CAUSED National Socialism and wwII, is a clever conspiracy by the Bush administration to persuade today's Germany that it is now OK (after decades) for them to again nurture their inner warrior and to send German soldiers out of their country TO SUPPORT US MILITARY ADVENTURES, mirroring similar subterranean movements in Japan.

He said outlandish, not plausible.

[Fisherking]

hum, how is this.

It wasn't Germanys fault. It was Bismarck's curse against the Kiser that stared it all.

[Brenus]

All this was Serbian manipulation

[Louis VI the Fat]

Just a minute there.

While I agree that the evil Serbian state was behind all of this, I am nowhere near done with the subject.

subliminal manipulation of your mind: Versailles is great Versailles is good Versailles is glorious Versailles is great Versailles is good Versailles is glorious Versailles is great Versailles is good Versailles is glorious

A debate is not won by arguments. It is won by setting the parameters of the debate before the debate has begun. This is what happened with Versailles. Ever since before the Treaty took effect, Germany cried bloody murder, as did all those who did not see their goals achived, or those belonging to any of the many extremists political cults that the first decades of the 20th century bred.

As a result, debate from the very beginning has centred on the question of allied misconduct. The victors have been on perennial trial. A criminal process, with the entente powers as the accused. They can plead their case, can rubbish any allegation, but the one thing people will remember is that 'the allies are accused of humiliating Germany with a duplicitous act'.

Versailles is great Versailles is good Versailles is glorious Versailles is great Versailles is good Versailles is glorious Versailles is great Versailles is good Versailles is glorious

There are other ways to describe Versailles, other narratives. Take a step away from the very politicised history of World Wars, (politicised history, and, moreover, a perennial playground of amateur historians and political analysts, armchair generals, and pimple-faced teenage boys with an internets), and there are other ways to look at this Treaty.

For example, international law. The Treaty enjoys an entirely different status here. An idealistic treaty that introduced such modernities as: respect for the defeated, persecution of war crimes, national self-determination, a massive shift towards morality in international law, legal regulation of war and peace, and international peaceful resolvement of conflict.

The Treaty of Versailles remains the gold standard in most of these aspects. It was more enlightened than anything before, more enlightened than virtually anything that came after. What a glorious treaty!


This little link alone will be an eyeopener. It deals with the less publicly debated aspect of prosecution of war crimes, the chapter before the one that remains the stuff of legend, reparations. It, will be sure to make you rethink what you thought you knew about Versailles:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Introduction
War is a contest between competing legal orders. In every street battle, with every bullet fired and every bomb dropped, one side seeks to obliterate the existing or proposed order and replace this with or retain its own 'order'. History contains few examples where victors have resisted the urge to impose their own order and control. In September 1919, President Woodrow Wilson gave an address at Pueblo, Colorado in support of the League of Nations. Of the treaty of peace, ratified at the Palace of Versailles, earlier that year, he said:

It is a people's treaty, that accomplishes by a great sweep of practical justice the liberation of men who never could have liberated themselves, and the power of the most powerful nations has been devoted not to their aggrandizement but to the liberation of people whom they could have put under their control if they had chosen to do so.

Not one foot of territory is demanded by the conquerors, not one single item of submission to their authority is demanded by them. The men who sat around that table in Paris knew that the time had come when the people were no longer going to consent to live under masters, but were going to live the lives that they chose themselves, to live under such governments as they chose themselves to erect. That is the fundamental principle of this great settlement.

Much has been said of that great settlement being one of the causes of the 2nd World War. Less that the European analysis with which Wilson gave to those 'who no longer consent to live under masters' ignored the struggle for self-determination that was being experienced throughout the world (1). But by seeking to dramatically alter the way in which conquerors considered defeated nations the treaty was a thoroughly modern document (2).



A gesture of Political maturity
Partly as a response to German public outrage, partly as a sign of maturity by the English delegation at Versailles, a recommendation made by the German delegation was supported (5). The German delegation settled the problems arising from the findings of the Commission and I would respectfully submit here that it said a great deal about the maturity, trust and diplomacy of those seeking lasting peace that their recommendations were accepted.

The German proposal was that a trial be held in Leipzig's Criminal Senate of the Imperial Court of Germany and that trials be conducted under German law. The Peace Conference agreeing to this, legislation was duly passed


Present day relevance
The Leipzig war trials were remarkable for particular reasons in relation to the conduct of the victors of the Great War. Following the German suggestion of jurisdiction, the Allied Powers demonstrated their belief that the German judiciary would uphold justice following an examination of the evidence put before them.

This belief is founded not only on Wilson's terms as quoted above, but also within the context of Lloyd George's belief that the salvation of the greater good of Europe was reliant on a German state that could be seen to be functional in the eyes of the citizens of that republic. This gave considerable support to the notion that national stability following conflict was possible, that its legal system remained efficacious and credible, although, ultimately events of 1923 in Munich would conspire to eliminate this suggestion.

This notion of an efficacious legal system of a conquered state is a notion quite alien in modern global politics. It would be unthinkable for a military power to hand back the keys to the kingdom to the judiciary of a defeated state for fear that their ideologies would result in sham sentencing or acquittal without due reason. But the understanding that a legal system maintains validity invests the decision of the Allied Powers of 1919 with considerable maturity since that decision recognises the legal system of the defeated nation. A conquering force that chooses to indefinitely detain and interrogate war 'criminals' without the light of judicial scrutiny and public knowledge does so by debasing not only the legal order of the state it has conquered but so too other legal systems that could bring justice to bear. This cements a vision emptied of trust in the justice that characterises every legal system.

Lloyd George was accused publicly of kowtowing to a nationalist fervour seeking to bring blooded revenge through legal punishment, but privately he argued for the importance of an international empathy. This belief consolidated international understanding, offered force back to the 'enemy' and created a legacy of which present legislators find impossible to avail themselves.

http://www.lawreports.co.uk/Newslett...rialsAug05.htm

A side note: compare the Leipzig Trials with the Neuremberg Trials, and - disregarding, perhaps, that those nazis ought to have been hung indeed - and you might never again think that Germany was brutalised in 1919, but dealt with in a conciliatory matter in 1945.
It was, as in virtually every other aspect, the reverse.
The difference is that perhaps concilliation requires a full overthrow of order before it can be achieved. Military, politically and legally. A hard lesson to learn, with political consequence and difficult moral dilemmas for the modern world and conflict resolution.

[Louis VI the Fat]

More documents for further reading.

The Armistice.
Should be most enlightening for those who think of the armistice as some sort of 'ceasefire'. The terms were, rather, dictated by the allies to Germany, and were non-negotionable. Apart from that, the very terms leave no doubt: it is a full defeat.

Noteworthy are:
- Germany already in the armistice is forced to surrender its military fighting capability
- the blockade will remain in effect
- allied occupation, to be paid by Germany
- territorial concessions

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

10 November, 1918
Official release by the German Government, published in the Kreuz-Zeitung, November 11, 1918.
The following terms were set by the Allied powers for the Armistice.


1. Effective six hours after signing.


2. Immediate clearing of Belgium, France, Alsace-Lorraine, to be concluded within 14 days. Any troops remaining in these areas to be interned or taken as prisoners of war.


3. Surrender 5000 cannon (chiefly heavy), 30,000 machine guns, 3000 trench mortars, 2000 planes.


4. Evacuation of the left bank of the Rhine, Mayence, Coblence, Cologne, occupied by the enemy to a radius of 30 kilometers deep.


5. On the right bank of the Rhine a neutral zone from 30 to 40 kilometers deep, evacuation within 11 days.


6. Nothing to be removed from the territory on the left bank of the Rhine, all factories, railroads, etc. to be left intact.


7. Surrender of 5000 locomotives, 150,000 railway coaches, 10,000 trucks.


8. Maintenance of enemy occupation troops through Germany.


9. In the East all troops to withdraw behind the boundaries of August 1, 1914, fixed time not given.


10. Renunciation of the Treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest.


11. Unconditional surrender of East Africa.


12. Return of the property of the Belgian Bank, Russian and Rumanian gold.


13. Return of prisoners of war without reciprocity.


14. Surrender of 160 U-boats, 8 light cruisers, 6 Dreadnoughts; the rest of the fleet to be disarmed and controlled by the Allies in neutral or Allied harbors.


15. Assurance of free trade through the Cattegat Sound; clearance of mine fields and occupation of all forts and batteries, through which transit could be hindered.


16. The blockade remains in effect. All German ships to be captured.


17. All limitations by Germany on neutral shipping to be removed.


18. Armistice lasts 30 days.

http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Con...e_with_Germany

[Louis VI the Fat]

Wilson's right hand man explains the Fourteen Points in more detail. Very enlightening too.

This leaves no doubt:
Germany to lose its colonies.
Colonies to be mandated by France and Britain, German colonies - unspecified as yet - presumably so too.
Germany to return Alsace-Lorraine
Germany to lose territory in the East to Poland and others
Germany to pay reparations to France for the full damage of the civil destruction
Germany to pay reparations to Belgium and others

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/doc31.htm

~~o~~o~~<<oOo>>~~o~~o~~

These two documents should go a long way to dispelling the notions that:

- Germany did not lose the war
- That Germany was duped by a promise of a more lenient treaty (Most of the contentious provisions are part of the Fourteen Points no less)
- The Fourteen Points are the honourable peace, and Versailles a brutal humiliating one.
- That the allies were duplicitous, by abusing a 'ceasefire' and then exploit this for a harsher treaty than Germany expected
- That Germany would've fought on if it would've known the terms of the treaty.
- That Germany even considered itself capable of fighting on in the first place, regardless of what the eventual peace would be like.


The actual Versailles Treaty and subsequent alterations gave Germany a more lenient peace than the Fourteen Points, and a more lenient one than Germany could or should have expected when it declared itself defeated on November 11th.

[Fisherking]

Louis, It is breaking down.

I wanted to point out what point five said about the handling of colonies. And what your summation said.

Instead I see the point interpreted by Colonel House.

You bring up points interrupted by one of the most divisive personalities in all of American History?

There are some who would equate that to bringing in the Devil to defend the Thief.


I will just say that I think most of what was expected was not what was delivered.

I do indeed think that the Entente was duplicitous. But I will leave it at that.

I am not going down that road.

We can argue what the definition of “is” is and it won’t change a thing.

[cegorach]

The excesses of the treaty, particularly the humiliating and absurd military reductions help to explain the German attitude. That the Allies would dein to inflict that alone would offend the Prussian mindset. You have said it yourself, France sought to weaken Germany for her own benefit. I'm sure you recognise the irony of France fearing a hegemonic Germany.

I can agree with that.

I think that these reduction helped a lot Germany in forming more modern fighting forces. If, as all their neighbours' they were forced to maintain a sizable army all this time, use older equipement (because it was cost effective to keep for example those cannons), feed and expand large navy and deal with even greater traditionalist opposition in the army they could pose less serious danger in later decades.
That is ignoring psychological consequences of this military reduction.

@Prince Cobra

I am quite sure the Central Powers planned to restore the Polish Kingdom as a puppet state with a German dynasty on the top.

Yes some sort of 'congress Poland' most likely bigger in the east, but without losing an inch of the Reich, most likely on the contrary - textile industry of Łódź could be annexed for example.
The Mittleeuropa would consist of a series of semi-colonial puppets, formed in conflicting borders so the old rule 'divide at impera' could be used effectively.
In other words another Balcans. That is really something the world and Europe needed...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

This wonderful thread, begun by the new Monast-in-chief in the Backroom, was a natural fit for the Monastery....but engendered such a lovely discussion that none of the BR mod staff had the heart to give it away. As it has now slipped from view in the BR, I have shifted it into the Monastery so that those of you who never deign to roll around in the political mud with the rest of the Backroomers can partake of one of the better discussions on the .org these past few years. I now turn it over to Louis' and CBR's tender care.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Now that the thread has been released in its natural habitat, I might as well feed it one more time.

The Versailles Treaty of 1919 remains one of the most profoundly misinterpreted international events of modern history. Eighty years after the victors attempted to put “Humpty Dumpty” back together again, a simplistic account of the international conference continues to be deeply embedded in public consciousness and at least some high school curricula. This reading of the Treaty alleges extraordinarily harsh treatment of Germany, featuring ruinous reparations that caused calamitous inflation and later the Great Depression, leaving Hitler and World War II in their wake. William Keylor’s The Legacy of the Great War offers a contemporary reassessment in a sagely selected collection of essays in Houghton Mifflin’s Problems in European Civilization series. Keylor is the author of a text on twentieth-century international relations, which provides him with a century-long and international overview, and he has published recently two relevant essays.[1]

In his “Introduction,” Keylor sketches the context of the peace conference, its historiography, and the structure of his volume. He ascribes the negative impressions of the Paris Peace Conference largely to the first fifty years of historiography, which held that a “Carthaginian peace” had undermined Woodrow Wilson’s moral vision. To wit, John Maynard Keynes’s Economic Consequences of the Peace “sold like a potboiler” (p. 13). Ray Stannard Baker and Harold Nicolson reinforced these negative images, while “Revisionist” historians in the United States cast doubt on Germany’s responsibility for the outbreak of war. Cold War historiography of the Versailles Treaty remained negative. For example, Arno Mayer and others stressed the influence of anti-Communism on peacemaking in 1919. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, newly opened French archives encouraged more favorable interpretations of the Versailles Treaty, and the essays in this volume are based primarily on new archival material. They also address issues relegated to the back burner at Paris: the rights of minorities, appeals for racial equality and consideration of the “Third World,” conflicting imperialisms and nationalisms in the Middle East, as well as the settlement with Germany.

http://www.h-france.net/vol1reviews/blatt2.html

~~o~~o~~<<oOo>>~~o~~o~~

For those with an appetite for a scientific article, try the mother of all re-revisionst articles, Sally Marks' The Myths of Reparations. It is from 1978. Since that time, she seems to have largely won her struggle for a more...'balanced' appraissal of the reparations issue:

- War guilt clause? What war guilt clause?
- Germany crippled? Germany made a large financial profit from reparations, while the European allies were left financially crippled.
- Versailles a duplicitous peace? Why, indeed it was. In the armistice negotiations, Germany accepted responsibility for all the loss and damage by German aggression. At the peace conference, this was toned down by the allies, to make the peace: Germany would not be asked to pay what it had already agreed to. Duplicitous alright - to those allies who had actually experienced enormous damages and had accepted Germany's defeat on the condition of full restoration.

[KrooK]

For Poland it was very good treaty. Due to it we regained lands stolen into 1776, 1793 and 1793 and gained some parts of Silesia.
For Germans it was something bad - they lied that they lost something that has always been their.
But they were living on polish soil and it was right that stolen territory must be polish again.
Anyway similar situation appeared after war - Germans forget that they started war and they claimed themselves victims.

[PanzerJaeger]

But they were living on polish soil and it was right that stolen territory must be polish again.

Not true.

Germans forget that they started war and they claimed themselves victims.

Not true.

[Strike For The South]

For Poland it was very good treaty. Due to it we regained lands stolen into 1776, 1793 and 1793 and gained some parts of Silesia.
For Germans it was something bad - they lied that they lost something that has always been their.
But they were living on polish soil and it was right that stolen territory must be polish again.
Anyway similar situation appeared after war - Germans forget that they started war and they claimed themselves victims.

POLSKA

[The Lurker Below]

glad this was selected to be shared here. very interesting discussion.

[Centurion1]

WE got a poland patriot on our hands boys and a very ardent one at that.

this should be interesting.

[KrooK]

Panzerjaeger maybe you could explain us why in your opinion Greater Poland wasn't polish territory annexed by Prussia?
Or Polish Prussia?

[Watchman]

You know, European states don't really "steal" stuff like real estate from each other so much as rob it at gunpoint... or swordpoint, if talking earlier times. Something of a long and distinguished tradition around the place nevermind now a fairly universal pasttime of rulers. Also pretty much how what we now call "states" got started.
(Kind of passé these days due to the expenses involved in all-out wars with modern tech, though; the World Wars taught that if nothing else.)

Back in the day everyone who could did it as much as they could for the proverbial fun & profit. Polandball is just being whiny 'cause he's been on the wrong end of it so long...

[Pannonian]

You know, European states don't really "steal" stuff like real estate from each other so much as rob it at gunpoint... or swordpoint, if talking earlier times. Something of a long and distinguished tradition around the place nevermind now a fairly universal pasttime of rulers. Also pretty much how what we now call "states" got started.
(Kind of passé these days due to the expenses involved in all-out wars with modern tech, though; the World Wars taught that if nothing else.)

Back in the day everyone who could did it as much as they could for the proverbial fun & profit. Polandball is just being whiny 'cause he's been on the wrong end of it so long...

The perfidious allied act of granting self-determination to Poland, in accordance to the Fourteen Points, was a duplicitous act that humiliated the Prussian mind by stripping him of his God given right to supress the Pole.

[PanzerJaeger]

Panzerjaeger maybe you could explain us why in your opinion Greater Poland wasn't polish territory annexed by Prussia?
Or Polish Prussia?

The partition of Poland was completely acceptable in the time in which it was conducted. Poland had grown weak and dependent on Austria, and was thus split up among greater, more powerful states, as was the norm during the 1700's. That is how modern nations were forged - in the annexation of weaker ones. If you want to retroactively apply statehood to every nation that existed in 1795, the world would look much different.

And before you misinterpret my words, let me just make clear that I do not believe that Poland should be given back to Germany or Russia. Just like the Polish Commonwealth in the late 1700s, Germany and Russia played their geopolitical cards poorly in the world wars and lost their claims on Polish lands. However, you should not take Allied generosity and scheming to weaken Germany and the USSR after World War 1 as some kind of proof that Poland had a right to exist all along.

[Strike For The South]

Dont worry Pnazer soon he'll give up and move to Chicago

[Louis VI the Fat]

Hmmm, the standard of this thread has dropped since it has been released into the wild from the confines of the peaceful and tranquil Backroom.

[Pannonian]

Hmmm, the standard of this thread has dropped since it has been released into the wild from the confines of the peaceful and tranquil Backroom.

Frontroom - Kingdom of Peace and Love
Backroom - Republic of War and Hate

[cegorach]

@PanzerJaeger

The partition of Poland was completely acceptable in the time in which it was conducted.

Actually it is very far from the truth.

It was seen as exceptional event. Especially because of its consequences - removing one of european powers from the map and the attempts to eraze it from history.

By which of course I mean the treaty from 25th January 1797 you surely remember, but for convenience I will quote it.

In the language it was written, the language of diplomacy and of civilised elites from that time i.e. French:

'La necessite d'abolir tout ce qui peut rappeler le souvenir de l'existence du Royaume de Pologne, lorsque l'aneantissement de ce corps politique est effectue (...) les hautes Parties contractantes sont convenues et s'engagent de ne jamais faire inserer dans leur intitule (...) la denomination ou designation cumulative du Royaume de Pologne, qui demeurera des a present et pour toujours supprimee.'

Poland had grown weak and dependent on Austria,

Which is of course true as long as by Austria you meant Russia, Prussia or even France and Turkey or just european balance of power.
In other words you are almost 100% right.

However, you should not take Allied generosity and scheming to weaken Germany and the USSR after World War 1 as some kind of proof that Poland had a right to exist all along.

Well. Again almost correct. The fact that the state erazed from history bacomes a subject of a troubled discussion only centuries later
less than 10 years after 1797 might suggest slightly different situation.

I also am intrigued how Allied powers supported Poland against the Reds considering that Lloyd George suggested it should capitulate to their demands.

Solid help was given by France, USA and Japan though someone might notice that only American (volunteers and charity help for civilian population during epidemics which swept through the region) and Japanese (Siberian Brigade, help with refugees and cooperation with Polish intelligence about Russian secret codes) was without any noticeable interests in mind.

Haller's 'Blue Army' just like Czech forces transported at the similar time to their homeland was deployed so quickly because of a possiblity that Germany won't accept the treaty so several divisions attacking from Poland and Bohemia might help in convincing them it is still a treaty thay can accept - otherwise the stick, or rather a baseball bat is always there...

Dont worry Pnazer soon he'll give up and move to Chicago

All right Strike For the South, you obviously enjoy good arguments where you can present your extensive knowledge.

I know I will never be able to counter your brilliant arguments, but perhaps for a change you would like to confront me?




Frankly - forgive me, but if this little line is all you can offer I dare say it will be very brief.







@Louis VI the Fat

Hmmm, the standard of this thread has dropped since it has been released into the wild from the confines of the peaceful and tranquil Backroom.

My intrusion won't last too long so I am sure it will be rised again very soon. Don't worry. ;)

[Strike For The South]

@PanzerJaeger

All right Strike For the South, you obviously enjoy good arguments where you can present your extensive knowledge.

I know I will never be able to counter your brilliant arguments, but perhaps for a change you would like to confront me?




Frankly - forgive me, but if this little line is all you can offer I dare say it will be very brief

I have no doubt your knowledge on this issue trumps mine, my post wasn't even directed towards you to begin with merley a playful jab against krook and PJ seemingly endless fight.

[Prince Cobra]

I've said what I think on the Versailles "generous, all-forgiving and all-stable" system.

Just to add something about the division of Poland. Poland was divided because: Russia, Prussia and Austria were getting stronger and more expansionist while Poland (indeed a power with potential) was suffering by its weird model of electing each of its kings (the HRE model). The reluctance of the large aristocratic families to obbey one dynasty made them try to find Kings from all over Europe each time the previous King died. This constant instability and the rivalry of the different aristocratic families may explain why Poland became so weak that it finally fell victim to its neighbours.

[cegorach]

Since I see nothing new added to the discussion perhaps I will throw something.

What do you think about possible conflict between in 1919?

At that time the war could still return and I wonder how long would it last and indeed if Germany were in any condition to fight at all.

I have no doubt your knowledge on this issue trumps mine, my post wasn't even directed towards you to begin with merley a playful jab against krook and PJ seemingly endless fight.

I've noticed, but since there are more Poles here than Krook you could see this coming.
Plust I enjoy it from time to time. [insert overused and somehow bored, but still very much diabolical laugher]


@Prince Cobra

Just to add something about the division of Poland. Poland was divided because: Russia, Prussia and Austria were getting stronger and more expansionist while Poland (indeed a power with potential) was suffering by its weird model of electing each of its kings (the HRE model). The reluctance of the large aristocratic families to obbey one dynasty made them try to find Kings from all over Europe each time the previous King died. This constant instability and the rivalry of the different aristocratic families may explain why Poland became so weak that it finally fell victim to its neighbours.

Since this is very much off-topic I only marked points which I would question.

One point - aritocracy ceased to exist in 1505 in Poland, de facto it still was there, but with numerous shifts and changes, but de iure it appeared only... after the partitions because it existed in the three powers.

In addition not weakness doomed Poland at that time, but atttempts to reform the satte which was seen by the three countries as dangerous.
Without those attempts the country would survive as another sick man of Europe of that period together with the Ottomans, the Netherlands, Spain, Venice etc.

But what survival it would be... better die trying.

[KrooK]

Strike ...best reply would be from Philippe le Bel (maybe you know this name): "silence Strike".
And my endless dispute with panzerj... is not your job.

Of course you see everything from your narrow French spoint of view.
But you know - I'm really pround I'm from Poland. Really.
Can you be pround that you come from France?
Same time when mine country is rising, your is falling.

[Pannonian]

Strike ...best reply would be from Philippe le Bel (maybe you know this name): "silence Strike".
And my endless dispute with panzerj... is not your job.

Of course you see everything from your narrow French spoint of view.
But you know - I'm really pround I'm from Poland. Really.
Can you be pround that you come from France?
Same time when mine country is rising, your is falling.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with SFTS showing his pride in being quintessentially French. The sunlit vineyards of the provincial town of Eaux-tonnes and his countrymen's wars with the Latin barbarians to the south are substance enough for him to raise his head with pride, and hail the sacred red, white and blue flag.

[drone]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with SFTS showing his pride in being quintessentially French. The sunlit vineyards of the provincial town of Eaux-tonnes and his countrymen's wars with the Latin barbarians to the south are substance enough for him to raise his head with pride, and hail the sacred red, white and blue flag.